Five years ago, Walter Rowell, who was then 21, ran for Wellfleet Select Board. His campaign featured some unusual proposals, including his idea that Wellfleet and Provincetown should “annex” Truro, dividing it at the Pamet River, with Wellfleet getting South Truro and the rest becoming part of Provincetown.
Walter got 49 votes, coming in fifth in a five-person contest.
His plan for carving up Truro was pure fantasy, but there was an interesting idea buried in it: the towns of the Outer Cape are not islands, existing in isolation. They depend on each other. Their futures are inextricably intertwined.
Reading the Independent should make that fact clear. The critical issues that the Outer Cape faces don’t stop at town boundaries.
Provincetown’s water comes from Truro’s wells. Wellfleet is making a deal with Eastham for help with its chronic accounting problems. The police, fire, and ambulance squads all rely on mutual aid from each other. Our health care and our nonprofits are shared, and all four towns must deal with the not-always-cooperative leadership of the Cape Cod National Seashore.
The single biggest and most immediate crisis confronting our region is the scarcity and cost of housing. It used to be hard for local businesses and organizations to find middle-income employees like nurses, chefs, carpenters, and bookkeepers. Prices have now rocketed so far out of reach that doctors, superintendents, and finance directors can’t afford to buy here, and there is almost nothing available for rent.
Without a massive effort to address this crisis, our businesses, schools, town governments, and health care will wither away for lack of workers. This community as we have known it will die.
Given that problem, one opportunity is glaringly obvious: 70 acres of undeveloped town-owned land on Route 6, next to an elementary school. The Walsh property in Truro is the ideal spot for new housing. No other piece of land on the Outer Cape has anything like its potential.
A diverse committee of well-informed citizens studied the options for two years and decided on a plan to create 252 new homes, which would satisfy 60 percent of Truro’s documented need for year-round housing and make a meaningful difference to the entire region.
But two weeks ago, the committee backed away from that decision and reduced the number of units to 160 — and even that number could shrink in the face of a well-organized campaign to “keep Truro rural.”
Why? Because of an online survey with zero statistical validity. I won’t bore you with explanations of sampling bias and methodology. I’ll just say that this use of the Walsh property survey would have given Richard Light, my old statistics professor at Harvard, apoplexy. The survey results are literally meaningless.
The tally that counts, though, will take place on Oct. 21 at Truro’s special town meeting. Then and there, Truro’s voters will help decide our collective future.
